Contents

Overview

The Living Daylights is the fifteenth James Bond film in the series franchise and was directed by John Glen. It was the debut film of actor Timothy Dalton assuming the role of James Bond after the decade-long reign of Roger Moore. The title of the movie and certain elements were drawn from the short story, "The Living Daylights" by Ian Fleming but much of the film itself is entirely original.

Plot

James Bond, Agent 007 of MI-6 knows how to live life on the edge. But the edge is becoming sharper and harder. Several friends of his and fellow 00 Agents are turning up dead and he has no idea why or who.

Until he aids in the defection of KGB General Georgi Koskov who has a disturbing story to tell. It appears that the new head of the KGB, Leonid Pushkin has decided to end the Cold War ... by heating things up! It appears that Pushkin has ordered the assassination every single enemy intelligence operative that they can find. And Bond is next on the list as well!

Production

Reception

Trivia

Following the retirement of Roger Moore who believed he was too old to believably continue to play James Bond anymore, Timothy Dalton was proffered the titular role but was unavailable. The studios' next choice was Pierce Brosnan who had suddenly become available with NBC deciding to cancel his television series, Remington Steele following the fourth season and with it, with his contract to exclusively star in the show for additional three seasons would be negated. However, when NBC learned that Brosnan was being offered the role of James Bond; they reversed their decision and offered to extend the Remington Steele series as well as completely rearranging their shooting schedule to allow Brosnan to star in both. Producer Albert R. Broccoli flatly refused believing that "James Bond will not be Remington Steele and Remington Steele will not be James Bond," and that Brosnan would only be accepted if Remington Steele remained cancelled. NBC famously decided to renew Remington Steele for a fifth season (only to cancel it after a mere six episodes) and the legal wrangling and delays allowed Timothy Dalton to complete his project and was thus available to serve as the new James Bond for the next set of movies. Ironically, Pierce Brosnan was chosen to replace Dalton in 1995 as the next actor to portray James Bond in GoldenEye.